Thinks happen: 9/1/10

20100930

Enhancement - A Girl and her Chair

And a slight enhancement.

The Profile(more than you really wanted to know)is here.

Lost GalleryThe rescue mission for battered and abused orphan photographs.

For more about Double Exposures see this page in Lost Gallery.

20100929

Found Photograph: John Forden's Children.

On the reverse:

Found in a bin in Bethany, Oklahoma.

Here is something I found with a Google. From the “History of the Early Settlers of Sangamon County, Illinois” Page 300.

“FORDEN, JOHN, born Jan. 12, 1798, near Elkton, Md. His parents moved to Bourbon County, Ky., when he was quite young. He was married April 22, 1824, in Clarke County, to Emeline Sidener, who was born Nov. 10, 1808, in that county. They made their home in Bourbon county until four children were born, and moved to Sangamon County, Ill., arriving in the spring of 1831, and settled five miles east of Springfield. Of their children—

JAMES W., born March 27, 1825, in Bourbon County, Ky., died in Sangamon county Aug. 23, 1851.

SARAH A., born Jan. 9, 1827, in Kentucky, married in Sangamon county to William S. Currey. She died September, 1854.

GEORGE W., born Jan. n, 1829, in Bourbon County, Ky., married in Sangamon county Feb. 15, 1855, to Permelia J. Ruckcr. They have six living children, MARY E., CHARLES T., GEORGE E. JOHN W., LAURA and JAMES R., reside with their parents three-quarters of a mile northeast of Sangamon station.

JOHN M., born Jan. 2S, 1831, in Bourbon county, Ky., married in Sangamon county Feb. 13, 1855, to Eliza Wright. They have one living child, ALICE. Mr. Forden is a merchant, and resides in Springfield.

Mrs. Emeline Forden died June 29, 1834, and John Forden died Dec. 1, 1849, both in Sangamon County.”

Things that match:
The name of the head of the family
Number of Children
Birthdates of children match the order and apparent ages in the photograph assuming the baby is a boy. Boy, James; Girl, Sarah; Boy, George; Boy, John.

Things that don’t match:
The fine quality and condition indicates that the photo is not old enough to be a photograph of the children described above. Estimating the ages of the pictured children, the photograph would have to have been around 1835. The photo seems to be post 1900, a difference of at least 65 years. Of course these are all estimated dates but the photograph seems too good to have been taken as early as 1835.

The Profile(more than you really wanted to know)is here.

Lost GalleryThe rescue mission for battered and abused orphan photographs.

For more about Double Exposures see this page in Lost Gallery.

20100928

Those dresses.


	I know that boys were dressed in a little smock garment for play clothes, but this is dress-up clothes. No wonder getting the first pair of the long pants was a big deal.

The Profile(more than you really wanted to know)is here.

Lost GalleryThe rescue mission for battered and abused orphan photographs.

For more about Double Exposures see this page in Lost Gallery.

20100927

Music Monday - An Ongoing Rant

I felt badly about not caring for rap performance because it destroyed my status of being able to enjoy and appreciate all forms of music. I finally rationalized, “How can anything be music if it is not musical?”

Most (and I feel safe in saying “most”) rap performance is merely inflammatory, profanity-filled, roughly rhyming couplets, set to a rhythmic background of raucous and thumping sounds. It is seldom musical.

How can that which is not musical be termed “music”? Simply put, rap is not music.

I don’t know what it is. Some kind of performance art I suppose.

And there’s something else that worries me: We hum and whistle the songs and music of our youth. That’s what makes them so eternal, so legendary to us. Just what are people going to be humming 20 years from now? It’ll be slim pickings surely. Will it be “bomtiddy bomtiddy bomtiddy bom”?

I have pawed through the cut-out bins, the pawn shops and the abundant thrift stores for cast out and cast away recordings, 8 track, cassette, 45rpm, LP and now CD. Years of doing this taught me (among many other things) that the music that is temporary and disappointing in our lives is there, reverting to dust. For some time it was heart-throb entries like David Cassidy and classical albums like Ravel’s Bolero or Handel’s Messiah assembled by small town bands in Europe somewhere. There were stacks of stand-up comedy albums, played once and never touched again. I found lots of vanity albums from show-biz personalities hoping to supplement their income in the music business. But, “William Shatner Sings?” or Robert Mitchum’s “Calypso is Like So” although treasures to the collector now, were turkeys when released. The used boxes contained albums by one hit wonders and head bangers. Never a Sinatra, seldom a jazz album would appear in the charity shop or garage sale. A used Charlie Parker album? Get real.

Today what do you find? Rap CDs. Lots of them. LOTS of them. It seems they do not stand up to repeat plays. The rap protagonists listen to the recording once and then move on. They must. Apparently there is not enough pith in the helmet to wear it repeatedly.

Of course in any art there are exceptions to every premise and medium. I make no judgments here; it’s only an observation.

Since the advent of recordings, one generation of parents grew up listening to jazz and show tunes. That was the popular music of their time. They listened to songs with fine poetry and indelible melodies. They also carry the guilt of the “Charleston” and the “Lindy Hop” and other dances of that ilk.

Along came Bill Haley and Little Richard. Parents were wary because they couldn’t understand the lyrics and thought the dances too sexually symbolic. Turns out they were right and well … wrong. Rock didn’t promote sexual activity any more than the crooners and the snuggle dances of the ‘40’s.

Rap is not the same story. The older generation may just be completely right. The current younger generation may just be the victims of the emperor’s new clothes. The next BIG thing might just be the cash-cow of corporations, eager to exploit the markets with a product that is transitional and must be replaced often; another edition of the planned obsolesce ploy, geared to selling the same product over and over.

The jury is still sequestered on that and ordered Gulf Shrimp today.